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Bad news, Man Utd and Spurs: The Premier League is getting harder

As Liverpool inch closer to their 20th title, the club’s rivals can console themselves that the top of English football might be entering its most exciting, competitive and unpredictable era for more than 50 years.

Since the Premier League was formed in 1992, only seven clubs have won it, four doing so more than once.

Manchester United and Manchester City made it their own for a while, and Liverpool will join Chelsea and Arsenal as multiple champions with a point against Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday. Everyone else dreams of being the next Blackburn Rovers or Leicester City.

This trend of repetitive winners is not new. You must go back to the Sixties for a time when several teams could go into a season with a genuine chance of winning the league.

Between 1959 and 1972, 11 clubs were crowned English champions, including Wolverhampton Wanderers, Burnley, Ipswich Town and Derby County. The landscape changed when Liverpool’s dominance began in the mid-Seventies.

It is the same in other competitions. If Crystal Palace, Aston Villa or Nottingham Forest win the FA Cup, it will be only the third time since the formation of the Premier League that one of City, Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea or Liverpool have failed to win either of the domestic knockout tournaments.

As Liverpool’s triumph proves, the usual suspects are not going away any time soon. The winner of the 2025-26 title will again most likely be Liverpool, Arsenal or City.

But there is no reason why Newcastle United, Chelsea and Aston Villa cannot push them all the way.